Idaho governor presents a sensible budget. Will legislators listen? | Opinion

Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Monday presented a sensible, balanced budget that preserves public education funding, spreads cuts out to minimize pain and preserves rainy-day funds for a true emergency.

Idaho legislators would be wise to follow Little’s reasonable lead — unlike last year when legislators proposed $450 million in tax cuts, capping off a whopping combined $4 billion in state tax reductions during the pandemic years when federal relief dollars were flowing.

Little is right to brag that Idaho spent those federal dollars on one-time projects and “not ongoing programs that would expand long-term obligations.”

Unfortunately, though, the Legislature, with the governor’s signature, used federal dollars to approve ongoing cuts to the budget, passing tax rate cut after tax rate cut, balancing the state’s budget with federal tax dollars and masking declining state revenues.

Now that the federal faucet has been turned off, the shorfall is laid bare.

In the current fiscal year, the state had to cut $200 million from the budget, and Little is proposing more cuts to next year’s budget.

Conforming to the tax cuts that are in the One Big Beautiful Bill — no tax on tips, overtime, Social Security — is expected to reduce state revenues by $155 million.

That’s a tax cut.

So if there are any legislators out there itching to cut Idaho tax rates again this session, may they stick with simply conforming to the cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill and not attempt to pass more ongoing cuts to Idaho’s already competitive tax rates.

People and businesses were already flocking to Idaho even when we had higher tax rates, and all we have proved since passing ongoing rate cuts is that growth isn’t paying for itself, and we can’t keep up with the rapid growth we’re experiencing.

The good news in Little’s budget:

• No cuts to K-12 education.
• Cuts to funding for some online education programs, some of which were shown to be rife with fraud, abuse and double-dipping (school voucher advocates take note: Without transparency and accountability, this is what you get).
• Miraculously balances the budget without touching rainy-day funds. This isn’t a rainy day; this is a self-inflicted problem. Rainy-day funds should be preserved for if and when we have a recession like we had in 2009.
• Doesn’t include repealing Medicaid expansion, which some legislators are champing at the bit to do, mostly out of principle, not practicality. Little recognizes that repealing voter-approved Medicaid expansion would be cutting off our nose to spite our face and could end up costing us more.
• Little continues to stand up forcefully for his Idaho Launch in-demand job training program, which could be his enduring legacy.
• Directs recipients of the Empowering Parents education expense grants to the state’s new school choice tax credit program.

While Little’s budget aims to mitigate pain — and largely does so — this is a reminder that we shouldn’t even be in this position in the first place.

Sure, looking for efficiencies, cutting waste and rooting out fraud are all well and good, but making cuts simply because you failed to budget properly has to be the worst way to go about business.

Consider this: General fund revenues are expected to be $5.632 billion for fiscal year 2027. That’s down 1.5% from the current fiscal year, and 9% less than the $6.198 billion general fund that Idaho enjoyed in 2022.

Think about that for a minute. At a time when we have more people and businesses moving into Idaho, bringing with them more needs for roads and bridges and public safety, the revenue Idaho gets from personal and corporate income taxes and sales taxes is going down.

Legislators should respect the work done by the governor’s office and the Division of Fiscal Management under new director Lori Wolff. It’s a solid budget that minimizes harm.

The big question will be, though, if legislators choose to stray from the governor’s budget and continue their reckless cuts, will the governor have the courage to stand up for what he knows is right and tell them no?

We’ll find out in the coming weeks.

Statesman editorials are the opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, assistant editor Jim Keyser and community members John Hess, Debbie McCormick and Julie Yamamoto.

This story was originally published January 12, 2026 at 2:05 PM.